Ethel Tyrrell 1926

Alfred Stieglitz made this photograph of Ethel Tyrrell, a portrait of a woman against a leafy backdrop, sometime in his career. What gets me is the range of light and dark he coaxes from a black and white image. It’s almost painterly, this control he has over the tones. Look at the details: the soft gradations in her face, the way the light catches the strands of her hair, the contrast between the stark white of her shirt and the dark leaves behind her. It all feels so deliberate, as though he were building the image one layer at a time. The image is sharp, you can even see the small hairs on her face. Thinking of other photographic portraits, it makes me think of Gertrude Käsebier, another photographer of the time who also made portraits which seemed to emphasize not only the person, but their inner world too. It reminds us that art is a conversation that continues through the generations. It’s about how we see, how we feel, and how we connect with each other through time.